23 Chapter 23

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*3rd POV Present

Clay walked into the dining room of his house, he saw his father who was reading the news on his ipad. He looked focused reading whatever he read on his ipad, clay walked in with a frown on his face because they didn't do this in the morning.

He picked up the glass, today he tried to drink coffee to calm his mind that had been very burdened with what had happened lately. Clay looked at his mother who was cutting fruit and said "the eggs will be ready in a minute, eat the toast".

Clay poured coffee in his cup, he felt strange about all this. his family gathered in the morning for breakfast, for clay this was something strange that they rarely did.

Lainie saw clay pouring his coffee, black coffee, "want cream with that?" she said and tried to get cream for clay.

"It's alright" clay said indifferently. He sit and in front of him was his mother's toast but he chose to drink his coffee instead of taking the toast.

"You don't drink coffee" his father looked at clay strangely because he had never seen clay drink black coffee.

"I don't eat breakfast either, so..." clay smirked as if mocking her father's words. His mom heard that and she said "Well it has been two weeks since we don't sit for dinner together as a family, so I am proposing that we have family breakfast every day instead." Lainie said and put the eggs on clay's plate.

"We just each have to get up a little bit early" Lainie said with a smile on her face, but clay's words were the opposite of what she expected. "How early did you have to get up? yesterday?" clay said with a smirk on his face and teasing her mom because yesterday they didn't get up early and didn't do this.

Lainie ignored clay and said with enthusiasm on her face "We don't do the full spread every day, but it's nice to start off right."

"So how'd your project end up last night? With Tony" Lainie said and ate the fruit, Clay understood what Lainie was talking about and he said calmly "fine".

"For history right? Did you ask Mr. Olivander too?" Lainie said and looked at clay, seeing his facial mimic to get an answer from clay.

"yeah uhm, it's history project and no I... didn't ask mr. olivander to help us" Clay said hurriedly.

"So why did Mr. Olivander come before?" Lainie said calmly again and ate her fruit again.

"I... ah... he just... I don't know... he just wanted to tell me about the girl who tried suicide..." Clay tried to calm down and took the orange juice in front of him, but he saw the medicine in front of him, he took it and tried to read what medicine was in his hand.

"Good..." His mom said and looked at clay who was staring at the medicine in his hand "Clay.... We know the last few weeks have been hard for you"

Clay understood again why they did this in the morning, they tried to give this medicine back to clay "I stopped taking these two years ago, these probably like expired anyway" Clay tried to ask them not to force clay to take the medicine again.

"it's a new prescription"

Clay looked at his mother and glanced at his father who didn't say anything that he definitely agreed with what his mother said. He put the medicine in front of his parents as if saying 'I won't take this' to them. "I gotta go, I need to prepare for school"

As clay got up from his seat, his mother called out to clay "Ah! Clay!", clay faced her mother, "What?"

"Don't... hang out too much with Mr. Olivander alright... he's bad influence for you" his mom said looking at clay. Clay didn't understand but he wasn't too close to Seth. "Okay" he shrugged and said indifferently.

Hearing him say that, his mom smiled widely, "And don't forget your lunch!"

Clay sighed and took his lunch.

When Clay had left, his father was still staring at Lainie. "You can give your idea more subtly."

"He's keeping a secret" Lainie said without looking at her husband, Matt Jensen.

"He's 17, I'm more worried that he's not keeping secrets" Matt said with a deep sigh and made Lainie a little worried about her husband's words and behavior. But she didn't say anything about it.

"secret keeping is learned behavior" Lainie said with a slight smile on her face, she looked at her husband who didn't say anything and just looked at his ipad.

"as is the silence" and added.

*TING

The sound of an incoming message was heard on Lainie's cell phone, she took her cell phone and looked at the contents of the message while keeping her face as if nothing was wrong. "I gotta go now" she said after seeing the message.

Matt didn't look at Lainie, he knew that Lainie was assigned to defend the clay school for the case of the girl who committed suicide. They had talked about it but they didn't tell Clay about it too.

"Alright" Lainie said, Matt nodded his head without looking at Lainie and was still reading the news on his ipad and drinking his coffee.

Lainie smiled a little at that, she got up from her seat and kissed Matt. Matt watched Lainie leave in silence, he watched Lainie's back as she walked out of the dining room until he heard the door close without saying anything.

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*Seth POV Present

I looked at my cell phone, i saw a message from Lainie and saw it before small smile on my face appeared. "Hmm...". The baker family, even though Hannah did not lose her life, they still sued the school regarding the suicide attempt.

Lainie was the one assigned to defend the school, and considering that clay went there and was probably friends with hannah, Lainie tried to back down.

Actually Lainie didn't take the case, but someone else did. She only helped the person to find evidence and so on, so what was the meaning of the text that Lainie had previously gotten from her job?

*screech

The sound of car tires could be heard outside my house, I smiled at the sound. I walked to my door, and tried to open it but someone had preceded me and opened my door with anger on her face.

"What the fuck did you just tell my son before?!" Lainie said loudly to me, I didn't answer her and just smiled at her. "What?!" she pointed at my chest, being quite short at 5'2, she looked at my face with her chin up.

I smiled at her and held her arm, "relax... it's not about us alright..." and stroked her other arm to calm her down.

"Then what?" her voice started to lower and her body started to calm down with what I said but her face was still upset with my behavior.

I brought my face closer and kissed Lainie's lips, she didn't resist my kiss and waited for me to stop kissing her. Our kiss was not a hot kiss with tongues playing, just a peck on the lips.

After I broke the kiss, I said "I only told clay about Hannah Baker's condition... that's it".

She frowned again and looked at me ridiculously, "then why did you say 'something bad will happen if you don't come...' it's blackmailed you know!" she showed me her cell phone message where I just chuckled at her.

"Then if I didn't say that, you wouldn't have come..." I looked at her with puppy dog eyes. Lainie let out a long sigh, "You just need to text me, the code I gave you before..."

"Nah... that's not fun right!" I said with a devilish smirk on my face. Seeing Lainie's slightly frightened face when I was at her doorstep... hehe.

"You!" Lainie yelled back but I didn't allow her to babble, I kissed her on the lips again. This time my kiss was deeper than before, with my hands not staying still.

Although Lainie felt upset by what I was doing, she resigned herself to my embrace. She closed her eyes and hoped that it wouldn't end too soon.